Then I defy you, stars!
by The Sky Pirate Girl
Summary: Theirs was a passion that burned the whole world. He would be the first to fall.
1. the lover

_**fortune's fool**_

* * *

Ares

* * *

She did not deserve this fate. My father married her to a brutish god who knew nothing of tenderness - a god who gave her iron shackles when she needed wreaths. Aphrodite was like a dying flower suffocated by a weed - a joke of a god, far inferior to myself or her.

Hephaestus was forging an iron cage for her soul. I hated him. I hated seeing this disgusting excuse for a man touch her while we were dining, seeing a lock that was out of place and brushing it away from her neck. And then her green eyes would meet my dark ones and she would look down. It disgusted her, I knew - my father had married her to the god of smiths simply to mock her, to chain her.

I'd run to wars where all was simple, and I would fight and strategize and forget all about love. I would never return until whatever army that I at the moment sympathized with, won. At night my love would sneak away from her husband's chambers and she would tend to my wounds- for yes, we could bleed even then - and she would berate me for my lack of responsibility and reason (but how could I ever smother my impulses, how could I put out my fire? this was my nature and she loved me for it). And Aphrodite would look at me and I would recognize that she worshipped me, she adored me and all her golden and tender love, all her yearning was for me alone.

In my arms, she beamed, she glowed, she shined and made the world seem more beautiful a place.

None of her children were from her husband, she would never let his seed give fruit - they were all mine. And just like I could make no claim over her, I could not claim them as my own - my sons and daughters. Phobos and Deimos became my loyal followers and friends, even though they never knew the truth- perhaps my blood had called to theirs and lured in, they came to me freely. Eros and Harmonia were all their mother's children, her support when I was gone to wars - cruel and unforgiving. How could I be anything but when I was dealt a blow so low in my youth?

Had I stopped loving her, had I crushed these futile feelings while they were still green and sprouting, the way I crushed my enemy's skulls, I might have turned out differently. But I hated so passionately, berated so much, just as my sweet love had turned vain and cold to everyone but to me and our children. I more often than not seemed the rebellious god of the great twelve, and she -the most indifferent.

The only one who knew the truth was our youngest daughter - Adrestia. Perhaps she should never have known, because the truth shaped her to be vengeful and angry. But she was loyal. She followed me willingly, loved me as a father and I took her under my wing. She wanted to see war, to fight with her older brothers and I showed her my world- cruel and harsh and bitter as it was, and beautiful in its dark danger and ugliness. I suppose this was what drew in my beloved Aphrodite at first- even my scars seemed fascinating to her for, she said, they showed strength and endurance, and worth.

Hephaestus drowned her in heavy but exquisite rings, necklaces that were beautiful and refined. My love loved pretty things but she carried these in contempt because they were her bounds. She tried for compassion for her husband - since there could not be love, even if she _was_ Love - but Aphrodite was not kind by nature.

At night, when we sneaked into the meadows of the mortals- our bodies bathing in sweat and moonlight, she dared laugh- it was a free laugh and no matter how strong I held her, she could not laugh less freely.

I loved her, the only one worthy of me. I knew love was a weakness, but in her I saw my mirrored reflection - everything I had ever needed and wanted, she possessed; everything I was, she had dreamed of and craved for. Her heart was loyal only to me, and mine was ever her belonging.

Then we were ignorant, blinded by our arrogance, and never thought that retribution was to come.

* * *

_**i**__**t was the nightingale, and not the lark**_

* * *

Aphrodite

* * *

They blame me and mock me ‒ my powers, they say, are far too foolish and vain for this world, they bring nothing but sorrow and despair. I smile and say nothing but I privately think they are afraid ‒ I've brought the world its greatest gift, and if love is not always sweet, then so be it. Love is not meant to be gentle, it's meant to shake the world and awaken it. It is not meant to be pretty and symmetrical and fair, and this precisely is its beauty.

They say I'm a whore and indeed I've had many lovers. But my heart has only loved one man and it will be his until the end of the world.

They say I came to this world full-grown from the sea but they are wrong. I might have almost felt as an adult would, but I had been a child. Still, men had bowed before my beauty ever since I was but a young girl, and I had to rely on my brother- Hades, and my guardian, Zeus, to keep them at bay.

Once they did not succeed. An old half-mortal woman captured me and planned to sell me to a house where the whores gathered- a brothel. The hag lived in the woods and only went to Athens once a month. I still vaguely remember the wooden cage, the feeling of dread, the yearning to see my brother's grave face and for him to save me, to send the old hag to the most feared places of his realm (which he was still too young to live in completely). I later learned that he had searched the world for me, his shadows roaming about every place that darkness dwelled in. But the hag was clever for her old age- she kept me in the light, near a lake that always reflected the moonlight. I was sort of a pet bird to her during this month and she would speak at me as though she was speaking to herself, not expecting an answer.

"Do you know not who I am?" I asked her more than once. "I am Aphrodite, goddess of Love, and my brother, Hades, is the dread king of the dead. He and Zeus shall raise an army and turn this forest to ash, and he shall take you to the darkest parts of his realm." The hag replied only once, and it was with a laugh. Then she told me she was far too old to fear death and had lost far too much to fear the gods. Devastated, I began to fall ill. The despair made me feel a constant frost, as if it was exuding from my very body. Finally, the old woman had to light a fire ‒ and this was her undoing.

I had not known that Zeus' son was born while I was captured.

From the fire he sprang ‒ tall, muscular and lean. With a cattish grace he turned to my captor and with a swift move, he killed her. In her dying moment, he kneeled to her side, regarded her with sad and full of wonder eyes, and asked a simple _'Why?'_. The shadows of my brother came to take her then, but she managed to reply: "Because love is a weakness. Since _she_ came to this world, only despair and disillusionment have followed," the old hag croaked. "Love always dies."

I would later learn this lesson painfully well but for now I was ignorant and, blessed in such ignorance, I beheld my savior in his red and golden armor made by that horribly dull and hideous man Hephaestus. And my savor beheld me ‒ warm, fiery dark eyes captured mine. He breathed heavily, his eyes wide and intense. In this forest, near that lake, I fell in love for the first and only time.

For Ares, god of war, had made his first kill today, while saving Love. It was a noble reason but his fault showed even in a beginning such as this‒ he was rash and wasted no time in thinking before acting when it came to the matters of the heart. Later he would plan wars with mortal generals, and his plans would be unfaultable, but when it came to _me_ ‒ his passionate heart blinded his cold and rational mind. He was fire, and he was barely a man then, but I had been barely more than a girl.

Safely reunited with my beloved brother (and perhaps, before Persephone came, I was the only one to love him so dearly), I confided in him of my newfound love. "Be wary," he said. "Do not give your heart away too lightly."

I watched Ares fight battles from Olympus, for then he was young and strong and contrary to Love, War is the strongest when it begins. Still, as night fell, I came down to the war camp, entered his tent and tended to his wounds, gave him pomegranate juice and sang quiet songs to him. He would look at me tenderly and I would know that I was the only one to know and to see him as a boy in the form of a man‒ with childish needs and passionate hopes and dreams of grandeur. And I would let him bite my neck‒ for his kisses had then been hard and selfish‒ and I would caress his hair lovingly. Then he would carry me to his improvised bed and make love to me...

He was Passion, I was Love and we would later become the stuff legends are made of, songs would be written about us, mortals would look at us as the ultimate lovers.

Around this time our first son, Cupid, was born, and a terrible danger was released upon this world - the mischievous god of desire and infatuation.

Then we were young and foolish and naive, and we knew not of the truth of this world. I had not noticed how Hephaestus was following me while I descended Olympus and went to sing with the nymphs, how he lecherously watched me from the shadows. It was my brother who warned me of his wants (for if Hephaestus had felt _love_, I would have known - but he only felt lust and obsession).

"I will cut his heart out!" Ares roared when I told him, but I begged him not to - it was impossible to kill a god at the time, I did not want my love imprisoned with the titans in darkness and in misery away from me. His warmth was my fuel, without him I would cool away, and ultimately - fade.

Soon Zeus came to me and told me that the god of the smiths had asked my hand in marriage. I cried, I howled, I stumbled and fell. "Why would you cause me such misery, my king?" I asked.

"Hephaestus is my son, he is worthy and he loves you. What _more_ could you want?" Upon my silence, he continued off-handedly. "Now, now, my dear, I heard from Hera that you were in love with him."

I felt cold dread- I had spoken to Zeus' wife that I was in love with her son, but I had not meant this one. "It is _Ares_ that I love!" I replied. "And Ares loves me!"

The father of both my lover and my enemy regarded me with narrowed eyes and I realized that he had known all along.

Zeus sighed a great sigh, the king of the gods who raised empires and burned away worlds of beauty and art, stomped upon the dreams of thousands dreamers - innocent girls- and laughed at the horror of it all. Frequently I wonder if Zeus had not tricked Hades into ruling the wrong realm. "Hephaestus is the older brother, I cannot deny his wish. Ares is still young and impulsive and knows nothing of the world of the older gods."

I thought of our son then. "You just fear us," I realized. "You saw what Cupid is capable of, and you're scared of the power that our union creates. You don't _want_ us together!"

Zeus looked down at me and in his gaze I at last saw truth.

Oh, my love, my beloved friend, our wings have been snapped down.

* * *

_**give me thy torch, boy**_

* * *

Ares

* * *

I was riding with Apollo, Athena an Dionysius when I saw a vision standing on the top of a hill. Why, that is my sweet Aphrodite, I realized, looking paler than Selene after Endymion was cursed. I told my friends not to wait for me, dismounted my stallion and ran to her.

"What is it, wife?" I asked her, caressing her cold cheek. "You look somber and depressed. Has some dear to you priestess passed into the realm of your brother? Is he still exiled? You look as pale as snow!" And I had been too excited then to notice the tearstains on her cheeks.

She tried to smile, in vain, for me. "Husband, I am not your wife anymore. I am to be given to your brother!"

"Our son..."

She nodded. "They are terrified of him."

"But will they harm him?" I asked.

"No, they will not - they'll have us both against them if they did."

I took her in my arms.

"They will pay. I'll _make_ them pay," I vowed. How could my father do this to me? How could he choose this pathetic _imp_ over me?

Aphrodite caressed my face, brushing away a bang of my hair, and looked at me sharply. "You will _not_ end up in chains in my Hades' dwelling-place like my father. Already you are the most hot-headed and rebellious of them. You never listen! And they needn't wait to look for any more reasons to imprison you."

I kissed the top of her head and there I rested my chin. My heart burned both for having to bid goodbye to its owner, and for the hatred that I was forced to feel for the first time. "Then our son will be their end."

Aphrodite smiled- a ferocious, cruel smile. "They _will_ pay. They will be burned by the same fire they fear."

That night, let the stars and the shadows of the night be my witness, we both shed bitter tears over our lost innocence. It might sound odd to you, reader, for she is the goddess of love and lust and I am War and Passion, but we had always dreamed that we'd end up together and watch nations raise and fall from the edge of Olympus, battling and loving each other until we were no more.

On the next day, the ceremony was held and Aphrodite stood pale and sad, and beautiful in her misery. Hephaestus often glanced at her lustfully and she even more often averted her eyes in disgust.

That night I ran away from Zeus' kingdom. The thought that she lay there, in the bed of my hateful brother, as he touched her, as he showered her with wet kisses and bit her cheek - _my_ love, _my_ Aphrodite - drove me mad. I went to Hades, who had been forbidden to leave his dwelling-place and thus could not come to the wedding and provide the moral support his sister so needed.

We cursed the gods in a resigned weariness and drank ourselves 'till morning. I stayed with him for a few days and then returned.

In the gardens, I saw my beloved and there was coldness in her features that had not been there before. As soon as she saw me however, this coldness melted and she ran into my embrace. I inhaled the scent of her hair.

"You are so warm, so mine, so beautiful," she breathed softly, slowly - a frozen snowflake that greeted the sun that would be its end, knowing at least that it'd die in warmth.

"I want to kill him," I said. "I want to pierce him with my sword."

"Oh, I'd gladly watch and plunge it deeper. And then I would feed his head," she vowed, "to the wolves."

But we could do nothing- years came and went, Hades' realm began to fill so much he was forced to return some of the souls to the world of living, giving them new lives and erasing their memories of previous ones. Centuries passed, and there were many wars to be fought. I sometimes passed by my brother, somehow managing to restrain myself and not attack him. His eyes were hateful too, for Aphrodite never warmed to him.

Slowly, the strength of the gods began to weaken.

I once managed to kill a god that had raped one of my daughters. The great twelve had gathered to judge me on a hill, but in the end realized that it was futile to punish me for defending the honor of my family. Once I had succeeded in defeating an immortal, I felt delirious from my victory and charged into the most dangerous and powerful of battles - of mortals and gods alike.

Aphrodite pleaded me to be rational, for the sake of her and of our children. I didn't want to hear her, anger is such a sweeping feeling after all.

* * *

_**cut him out in little stars**_

* * *

Aphrodite

* * *

I had felt ill at ease that whole day. Was some king or shepherd or god suffering a tragic love? I knew not, so I came and went from place to place. No, it was a perfectly fine day. A little cold, but it was understandable since Persephone was spending her six months with my brother. Then Hermes floated to the garden I was anxiously pacing in, his expression somewhat stiff and grave.

"What is it, my friend?" I asked my past lover.

"I bring you bad news, sweet Aphrodite," said he. "Zeus' son is dead."

I felt the thrill of excitement and joy and I barely suppressed a smile. "Hephaestus?"

"Ares."

My smile froze on my lips. Ares? Dead? But he was simply gone to my dear brother then, nothing to be dreaded. "I shall go to Hades, then," I told Hermes.

He frowned at me. "You know this isn't how it works."

"I am the sister of the king of the Underworld, I _will_ see Ares now."

"Aphrodite-"

I left. I wasn't feeling worried, and I didn't want to hear unneeded condolences. As I descended Olympus and walked towards the cave that would lead me to the great river Styx, I came across Persephone. "My sister," I said to her in wonder. "What are you doing here?"

Persephone smiled at me sadly. "Hades let me come above. He bid me to tell you that you cannot go to see Ares. His soul is with the titans. No one goes there."

"With the-?" I swayed but she caught me. Ares gone. I had not realized Persephone was leading me by the arm until the sun began to set. "Where are you taking me to?" I asked.

"The battlefield," the queen of the Underworld replied.

I felt coldness. I tried to suppress the feeling that made my heart beat so fast, that made my feet tremble and bile rise in my throat. I already felt cold and my fire was gone but for a day.

I impassively walked through the countless bodies and into the tent of my beloved. There his body lay, the cracked red armor taken away from him and standing by his death bed.

_My_ Ares, my love. Oh, Persephone, tell me that he is simply sleeping and you have not taken him away to your kingdom. Tell me that his paleness is because he was missing me and our children and has not slept well before today.

I slowly went to him and stood above his body. I caressed his features, took the hand that had always been tender and warm to me, and pressed his palm upon my face. _Ah_, so cold already. I gave a raspy cry and I dropped it. I rested my head on his chest, listening for a beating heart but the silence was smothering.

I did not grieve as Persephone stood by me silently. I did not grieve as Phobos, Deimos and Adrestia came in a hurry, wide-eyed and panting. I did not grieve as Cupid flew in, expression as frozen as mine. I did not grieve as I wordlessly returned to Olympus.

I did not grieve when I passed my husband's dark and humid smithy - then I was angry. I was angry because I knew he had caused the death of his brother and enemy. He had made his armor fallible. Hephaestus had always despised Ares, because the god of war had always been more charismatic and beloved and because I never bore Hephaestus children when I had given Ares five... But I would shout and yell and cry later.

I did not grieve as I passed by our youngest daughter's chamber. Harmonia was sleeping peacefully, without a care in the world. She was the most symbolic product of my lover's love for me- the harmony that resulted when love conquered war and bedded it and watched its defenses fall.

I did not grieve. Perhaps something is wrong with me, I thought at one point. Perhaps I had not truly loved my lover.

I did not cry as I prepared to go into my bed but dropped the sword that had belonged to him (I had not fully realized I had dragged it all the way with me). As I kneeled to retrieve it from beside my bed, a powerful sob ripped itself from my chest and three hot tears rolled on my cheeks.

_Then_ grief came. _Then_ I allowed myself to be taken by it, as I had been taken by men previously.

I cried for the loss of my one true friend and opponent, my equal and my lover, the father of my children, my idol, my endearing warrior and traveler.

I cried and I grieved and on the next morning I descended Olympus again and I descended Trace and went to my brother Hades.

* * *

_**A/N: Next chapter **__**will feature Adonis as the new main lead (who's actually Ares' reincarnated mortal version).**_

_**M**__**aybe we'll get to see the consequences Aphrodite is paying for that request she made.**_

_**Although I'm not pretty sure when I will get the muse to write more.**_

_**Review please? :P**_


	2. adonis

_**arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon**_

* * *

Adonis

* * *

I had never met a god until my seventeenth year.

My life had been passing by, like any mortal - for we could never capture the interest of the gods for too long, and- bored from us, they would leave us.

The people from my village, a lovely place near the roman colony Phillipi, worshipped Hephaestus (or Vulcan as the Romans call him) - the god of labor and the smiths, and Dionysius (Bacchus), the god of the wine, but I felt most drawn to the just and wise Athena ( or Minerva), the beautiful and steel-minded Venus; most of all - to Mars - the god of war. I've always yearned for the battlefield, to have a sense of purpose, the call of a cause.

People always thought me too intense and fiery to their liking, preferring their comfortable but dull lifestyles. There had to be more than just the mundane things - working in the fields, hunting, marrying a sensible woman, having children and dying... Since I was but a child, I've always had this yearning in my heart, as if I haven't seen even a particle of the things I'm meant to see - all the beauty and art, the great cities of Athens and Rome, _all_ that is worth fighting for.

I met her on a pretty summer day while I was hunting alone in the forest, searching for the rumored white lioness. I heard a noise from behind me, turned - ready to kill the beast with my dagger, and stopped- for instead of a wild animal, I saw a beauty. It was not so much the face, nor the body (but they could make a man lose his mind) as it was the gleam in her eyes - intense, yet hopeful, as if this was a woman who was used to search for one thing or another. In that gleam I recognized a fellow soul, a seeker like me. It was the light above her left shoulder, the way her dress was all rags and her breath caught, the way she breathed out as if she had been cold even in such a summer day as this one. Maybe even then I had sensed the curse that lay upon her; the ice shards the world had blown at her.

"I almost killed you," was the first thing I said.

"You could never kill me, " was her soft, matter-of-fact reply. She smiled cynically and, as an afterthought, added. "No mortal can kill me."

"Oh?" I asked with a smile and raised a brow. "And what are you? A nymph? A dryad? A spirit from the kingdom of the dead?"

"No, I am much more," she said. "But for the past two dozen of years, I am just a weary traveler."

"And have you wandered across this world all alone - as pretty a creature as yourself?" She titled her golden head in a nod. "Without a fear in the world?"

She laughed. "Why should I be afraid? Whenever they hear who my brother is, they tend to forget their corrupt ways in my presence."

I sat on a stump nearby and smiled at her. "So you are untouchable as a bird! I wonder at all the things you've probably seen."

The stranger's eyes danced merrily as she regarded me. "Ah, but even a thousand years of beauty and wander are not worth anything, if there is no home to return to."

"You are homeless, then? How could you be? Any king that sees you would instantly take you as his bride," I said in wonder. "Any god would be lucky to have had you."

She looked down in humbleness that did not become her - she was meant to glow in pride and happiness.

"My beauty brings nothing but destruction." And she spoke no more.

"Who are you?" I asked her again, stood up and approached her but she stepped back and laughed.

"I will come back after three days and see if you have guessed my name by night." Then she ran away, leaving me in the clearing, arm out-stretched as if to catch her.

I could not sleep well that night - I dreamed of her, and I dreamed of wars and fire, of the song of the blood rushing sweetly in my veins and the sheer exhilaration as I placed my hand on the tilt of a sword.

"I think I saw Venus last night," I told my uncle, Iolaus, on the next day. Iolaus was a great romantic and an old bachelor. He claimed he had been traveling with heroes in his youth. Right then, he was milking his one goat, but I liked to disturb him while he was busy - liven up his life a bit.

"Aphrodite, you mean," he corrected. "They say she hasn't been in these lands since Ares was killed." I said nothing, hoping he would continue. "She has been traveling through different lands and realms, going from war to war, as if hoping she would see her lover's spirit amongst the warriors.

"The goddess of Love is fighting in wars?" This seemed about as impossible as Zeus being able to remain faithful to his wife. "_In_ wars?"

"She does not go to battles, of course. She's been plotting strategies alongside the generals and blessing the battles of those she favors," he said. "She helped the Romans, _his_ people win the battle of Corinth."

"She forsook Greece for Rome?"

"What had Greece and its gods given her?"

_Nothing_, I thought.

"And what of her children and husband?" Iolaus grunted, clearly thinking that I was distracting him from his work and ought to mind my business and leave him alone. He continued though: "Her children are grown and married and she despises her husband, our protector Hephaestus." Uncle stood up, grabbing the bucket now full of milk. "Well, fat lot of good all that beauty did to her in the end. Better marry some somber, plain maid - she'll look at you with gratitude and adoration all her life. The pretty ones are like eagles - only the best of hunters have them by their side."

* * *

_**give me my sin again**_

* * *

Aphrodite

* * *

The second time I found him, he was in the woods again, near the waters of a spring. It was a hot morning in all of Greece, perhaps only a little cooler in the thick forests in northern Trace where the entrance to my brother's realm and the great river Styx were.

The home village of Adonis was only a few days of travel away from it, a dark reminder of the deal I had made with my brother. Should any god except my children become privy to it, Adonis would be slaughtered in a heartbeat.

Now I gazed at him, asleep by the water, bare-chested and beautiful, golden curls with shades of coppery, high cheekbones, long lashes, a perfect nose, lips that any siren would give her voice to kiss; his physique - perfect in every way.

Of course he was, he had the life-force of _my_ immortality in his veins, and the soul of Ares to shape him into a perfect hunter and warrior. No matter how dark was the mother, how rough was the father, he was _bound_ to become a handsome man.

I'd searched for him - in every battlefield that would call his soul like the sea would call the sailors, like the flames would call the moths. I searched for him in Rome, where his son had raised a nation that was destined to conquer the world.

"Adonis," I breathed softly but it was enough to wake him from his sleep. He slowly opened his eyes and rose, eyes drawn to mine, lips parted slightly.

"Aphrodite," he said, his voice raspy from disuse. "I waited for you the whole night." The gleam in his eyes was still the same as it had been when he was first a boy - a wandering soul, a fellow soul that shared the same essence as I. For better or for worse, we got stuck together on as far as that day we first saw each other.

"You know then," I stated. Of course he did.

"Of course I do - more than a dryad or a nymph or spirit- a goddess then. And no goddess could be as beautiful as Aphrodite." I smiled and moved to sit next to him. "Is it true that you haven't returned to Olympus in eighteen years?"

She lowered her eyes to the ground. "They killed my lover. My husband was the one responsible."

"Many men kill the lovers of their wives," he said and I laughed dryly. "I suppose that even with gods it isn't any different."

"Zeus despised both of his sons - Ares for the chaos and threat that he was, Hephaestus - for his roughness and ugliness. Zeus has always liked his kingdom to be in order and beauty. Had Ares not been his flesh and blood, he would have gladly thrown him in Tartarus ages before his actual death..." But my love did not know I was talking about him, so I decided to speak no more. "And you," I turned to him. "Are you married?" I asked, knowing that I'd be devastated if he was.

"No, I've never found the woman I seek - not one of the village women was my equal in mind, none seems to possess the daring nerve and beauty I dream my chosen mate to have." He laughed. "Perhaps my whole life I was searching for a goddess."

I smiled. "Perhaps you were."

I wanted this moment to stop, for Chronos to put a hold on time. I wanted to stay there under the blazing sun and the song of the birds and the nymphs and dryads, with my love - even if he, the mortal, would never know that he meant the world to me, the goddess - I wanted to stay there with him for an eternity, just a step away from becoming lovers, just a step away from remaining strangers.

Adonis took my arm and pressed the back of my hand to his lips, closing his eyes. Mine were already closed.

* * *

Now that I had him back, the days passed so hurriedly, and turned into months. With my bliss, the fear that it would again be torn away from me grew, especially after one day as I was walking into the forest to meet my lover - I met Hermes. Thankfully, we weren't in the meadow where my lover was bound to come and so - our affair was not discovered.

But I knew that the news about my arrival in Trace would be spread faster than the morning winds could carry them. I was soon called to Olympus by Zeus, that bastard of a man and a father that I had come to despise nearly as much as I loved one of his sons and hated the other.

I answered his call and walked through the court of the gods with head held high - as someone who had forcefully been dragged into the deep and thus - risen higher, someone who had been cleansed by their pain and saw the world with new pair of eyes. I walked through their crowds as they parted for me with head held high, in the manner someone adopts when he has a secret that mustn't ever be discovered.

I didn't look down even as I bowed to the king, as bold as that was bound to appear.

"Aphrodite," he drawled. "To what do I owe this exquisite pleasure? Did you miss your man?" I looked at Hephaestus then, fiercely and angrily like a caged animal that wanted to rip its captor's throat.

"Aye, " I said. "I miss him." We all knew I wasn't speaking of my husband. "But I only came here to see my children."

I knew that thus ended my time of sweet oblivion - now I would have to be infinitively more careful when I went to meet Adonis.

* * *

I was awoken from my sleep by a tender hand and I instinctively smiled and pressed it closer to my cheek.

"It's been too long a time, my beloved brother," I said, slowly raising from my bed and rubbing my eyes as he sat next to me and embraced me warmly.

"You've met him already, have you not?" he said, still not letting me go.

I smiled. "Yes."

"Then, you know-"

"This is a price I'm willing to pay," I replied, voice full of conviction. "It is the best possible outcome."

"I'll protect both of you with whatever it takes me," Hades vowed and cradled me in his arms, my back pressed against his chest. "None of this would have happened if Zeus had not married you to his pathetic bastard of a son."

"But, Hades," I said and looked into his fierce green eyes and brought my hand to his cheek. "It is already done. There is no use to dwell in the past."

"Mark my words, dear sister," Hades said then - voice husky from emotion. "I will be the one to avenge you. Sooner or later."

And with a final kiss on the crown of my head, he evaporated like a shadow, leaving me alone.

I laid back in my bed, hugging Ares' sword to me, as I had once pressed his body against mine.

I kissed the tilt which his hands had once grasped, pressed my forehead to it, its coolness - a balm in this hot night.

I wanted him to remember.

Missing him had been like a sword in the gut, like a fire too suddenly extinguished, like a hand that had gripped my heart. I tried running, but there was no escape. I tried screaming but my dignity - even then- had swallowed my cries. There had been nothing beautiful in the absence of him, in the feeling it created, nothing dignified, nothing serene like the quiet way the women waited for their sailors to return from the sea - it was ugly and raw and painful and I wished for Zeus and Hephaestus to get inside my head and heart just for the sake of feeling my pain - then they would probably sway from the sheer force of the storm inside of me, and fall to their knees, horrified.

* * *

There were a few stark differences between Ares and Adonis, even if they shared a soul - because the request was mine and Adonis - blessed by me - his physique was more pale and golden than dark, his eyes - midnight blue in their intensity instead of gleaming and brown. He looked younger, for even if gods didn't age - Ares got struck looking like a man in his late thirties and it had become him - he had been a leader, a warrior and a father. Adonis was like a breath of fresh air - he was far more serious than Ares (as if somehow his psyche remembered the hardships Zeus had put him through), and his love for the arts ran deeper, was softer and more tender than the bold and shocking love that Ares had for glamorous beauty.

There were a few things that hadn't changed however - the curious, loveable, almost innocent way he looked at me - with the sense that I was the only woman to ensnare his heart, its keeper; the way he seemed to exude purpose and ambition and vigor, as if nothing could thwart him. The way he made love to me, the way his smile was a mixture of bashfulness and cockiness. And the way I loved him.

I loved him, I love him like he was salvation, like the hopeful smile and the breathy laugh that came after crying. I loved him like the happiness that came between a wonderful dream and the minute realization and waking up, like the moment the heart skips a beat between the lightning and the thunder. I loved him like I had no choice, like the desperate first breath one draws after half-drowning. I loved him beyond the love one has for a lover. I loved him with the freedom and joy a woman feels when she knows she has captured the heart of the one man who is worthy of and in the possession of hers.

And so, the years passed.

* * *

_**like fire and powder  
**_

* * *

Adonis

* * *

When I don't see her, I dream her. She looks the same, smiles the same - but there is something in her eyes that is missing in the waking world - some conviction in the rightness of the word - a star more in her deep, green eyes.

In my dreams, she comes into my tent and heals my wounds and kisses me sweetly. I sigh in content- she is in my arms again. I do not know why I am always so relieved when I see her - as if she is a firefly that could be caught at any given moment by a wicked child.

In my dreams, sometimes, she is with a child. I feel very nervous around her and bring her gifts I have ordered from the nymphs, she smiles a knowing, secretive smile and her lips are warm against the space between my shoulder and neck. Sometimes, I watch her from afar - she is playing with not one but five children! And I feel fierce pride and wonder in them - watching the oldest fly about gleefully while the youngest sleeps peacefully against its mother's bosom, and the other three play with wooden swords. And she- my love- hums a quiet song to her youngest. I swear she glows with a golden light at that moment.

When I wake up, it's as if something's been ripped away, a wind sucked out by some unknown force, and I would close my eyes again wondering at the strangeness of my dreams.

Sometimes I dream of armors cracking and poisonous blades - of hours of prolonged and painful death and yelling and crying from pain, and in my haze I summon a single thought - of that view of that woman and her children, of the lovely melody she hums. Lulled by the mirage, I fall asleep in my sleep and wake up to reality.

Sometimes I would see other faces- of other children, of fully grown men. I would dream of green, intense eyes so like the ones of my beloved - but belonging to a man with a warrior's build and long, wild curls - he is a fearsome king but I do not fear him - I feel he is of my kin - a brother, a comrade. I would dream of an old and silver-haired man who is still vigorous and his eyes still gleam at the image of a beautiful woman - I feel disgust in him. The other man I hate and wish him dead. Even in my dreams I recognize him as her husband. He has reddish long hair and his eyes are like burning embers - there's something suffocating in the manner in which he walks- an undeserved confidence, something _un_neat and nightmarish- darker, even than the green-eyed man. Or maybe it is the feeling he inspired in me. He reminds me of my father a little.

There is always some injustice in my dreams - some anger at this injustice but I do not like to dwell in my mares when I am awake.

Aphrodite once asked me what I dream of and with a quiet voice I told her I dreamed of beauty and music, and not of the gods of these lands.

* * *

It's been three years since I met my Aphrodite - for three years she has held me in Trace, as I forgot my longing for Rome and my dream to become a gladiator, to fight in battles - or even as a centurion in the art of war. I knew she wouldn't hold me here if I told her, maybe she would even come with me. But for now, she was enough.

I still went hunting, but she seemed worried about me going in the forest to hunt alone - she always warned me, before she departed for wherever she was called to, to not hunt for lions or boars as it was not uncommon for the gods to take the forms of wild beasts and she was afraid that her husband or his father, Zeus himself, would come for me.

I listened, even though this challenge seemed to call me like a siren, I listened to her pleas.

Living with her, whenever she came, was a bliss - a simple life was all she longed for, as surprising as it was. And yet, whenever she walked, the world seemed richer and more beautiful.

Then, in the short space of a moon cycle, I met a few other gods (though, admittedly, some of them I had not recognized as such at the time).

The first time, it seemed an accident. I was chopping wood when I saw a young man coming at me (from above!) and just as I tried to move away, he crushed into me and we both fell.

He quickly stood up and looked around.

"Is my mother here? I know she is, I _know_ she spends her days in this forest." I stood up carefully, brushing the dirt away from me.

"Your mother?" I asked. The young man then turned at me, his wings hooting a bit as he seemed to actually notice me for the first time.

"Aphrodite, goddess of love and what not," he said slowly and then narrowed his eyes at me. "You're her lover, are you not?" he said. In a blink, my back was pressed against a tree, the man's hand painfully choking the life out of me. "Look, we might not be as close since I married Psyche, but, I _swear_ on my father's soul I _will_ rip your heart out if you hurt her or cheat on her." He then loosened his hold a little and shook his head to himself. "So soon after Ares' death she chooses a pathetic mortal!"

I had had enough. I might not have been a god, but I would _not_ be spoken to in such disrespectful manner.

I quickly threw him off and soon his arm was painfully narrowed behind his back. "You have my word," I said. "I'd sooner die than hurt Aphrodite. And last I heard, your wife was also a human like me when you met her."

"It's different," Cupid said with a huff. "Psyche does not have to compete against anyone's memory."

I suddenly let him go and breathing heavily, I took a step away.

I took the wine I had brought with me and took a swig. Soon Cupid turned to me again and after noticing the wine, he looked at me. I shrugged and handed it to him.

"Do you love her?" he asked me before he drank.

"Of course I love her," I told him. "Who wouldn't?" The winged god smiled crudely. "She suffers because of you," I said quietly. "By shutting her away, you've inflicted a deep wound upon her."

Cupid looked up to the sky and shaking his head, he took a sip. "'S not my fault she decided to put my wife through so much misery."

"Aphrodite was going through much at the time."

Cupid looked at me in irritation. "How would you know?"

I smiled. "She told me."

The dangerous god of infatuation laughed. "There's something about you," he said. "You've captured Love herself, after she's bedded so many immortals. What do you have that can make you an equal to them in her eyes?"

I pondered on that for a second. "I don't know..." I said truthfully. "I just know that I love her and everything about her unconditionally." And it was true. How could you not accept and love someone that gives you equally as much love and acceptance in return?

Cupid smiled and looked down, taking a third gulp and passing me the wine. As he was about to look at my face, his eyes froze on my stomach. I didn't need to look down to know that it was my birthmark.

"Where did you get that from?" he asked sharply, even accusing. I looked at the scar-like mark below my chest.

"I was born with it," I replied. "It quite looks like a wound from a sword, don't you think?"

Cupid stood frozen for a moment more and then, quite unexpectedly, laughed wildly and breathily, a few tears even spilling from his eyes.

"What?" I asked, offended. Cupid just looked at me, still laughing, and wiped away his tears.

"That woman," he said finally. "My mother- she's quite the fierce warrior when she wants something, isn't she?" he said to himself, then embraced me as a brother and promptly flew away, looking back a few times and laughing merrily to himself.

Bewildered, I did not realize what had just occurred and after a few minutes, I decided to continue chopping the wood.

A fortnight after this, three horsemen passed me by in the road near the village, and a young girl with hazel eyes- a traveler obviously- gave me a flower while I was going to my uncle Iolaus. I had not known then that those were Aphrodite' other children.

My next encounter with a god wasn't quite so pleasant as receiving a lily-of-the-valley or sharing alcohol with the god of infatuation - for it was Aphrodite's husband, Hephaestus, that had finally found me.

* * *

_**A**_**____****/N**: Thank you for the reviews. :) As for the differences and the interpretations of the myths, I'm having way too many headcanons and they all somehow turned into this. :D I've made a trailer for the story, its link is in my profile page. Also, in this chapter Aphrodite may have been a bit melancholic but I think it's understandable and excusable, seeing as she had just lost the love of her life.


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